


Do Exos Dream of Electric Sheep?

by b0nes



Series: Here Lies Fireteam Maelstrom, Survived By The Exodus Family & Associates [3]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dissociation, Other, oof ouch the trauma of it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b0nes/pseuds/b0nes
Summary: The short answer is no.Wolf-16 dreams of war and betrayal on Earth's lonely gray moon. Serenity does what she can.
Series: Here Lies Fireteam Maelstrom, Survived By The Exodus Family & Associates [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2026865
Kudos: 4





	Do Exos Dream of Electric Sheep?

**Author's Note:**

> oof this is a heavy one. meant to write this a while ago but i just got around to it!
> 
> **warnings include** graphic depictions of violence and death, brief gore, and dissociation.

He knows he's dreaming when he steps out onto an endless field and the air is cold. Serenity is nowhere to be seen and he is alone, but not for long. A dark mass on the horizon is building, closing fast, severing the sky from the land, and he knows what's coming. The gun in his hand isn't the one he knows, he doesn't recognize it, but he holds it tight. It feels wrong in his hand, curling sickly cold tendrils into him, heavy with the weight of knowing what needs to be done and so, so very tired of the violence. 

It's ways the same. They come. Few at first, growing into many. They attack. Mindless, soulless. They're cut down, gunshot after gunshot. Wolf-16 runs and they come, they attack. His rifle never wavers, never fires dry, even as the bodies pile up to terraform the landscape in slowly bleeding hills. Each and every face is familiar. Each and every face is other. He looks up into the eyes of people he knows. People he loved, still loves. People he doesn't remember anymore but must have known and loved lifetimes ago. 

And they keep falling. More keep coming. And Wolf's body is durable. Solar Light burns across steel plates, leaving them aglow in curling wisps of black smoke. Paint flakes away in small embers. He could run, run for days, for years, if he had to. But he doesn't. A killing machine in the truest sense, more kin with the weapon in his hands than these familiar unfamiliar combatants. Fear and fate collide and rock the ground beneath him, and he doesn't want to die here in this place that reeks of blood and pain. He wants to know peace, but that isn't a concept reflected in the faces of the lives he ends on this battlefield. 

His fitful sleep cycle brings him faces he could never forget. A Warlock with orange eyes and black hair. A Titan with peacock blue paint and pink optic lights. The Titan crashes into him, coated in waves of Arc energy and the impact of her broad shoulders against his chest discharges it into his body. Wolf rockets backward but he lands on his feet in time to dodge a volley of explosive arrows from the Warlock. He has to scramble away, a rabbit chased by lions, use cold bodies for cover, and the Titan crashes into him again, a lightning storm of fury. The pair keep him running, desperate, keep him dodging, afraid, and he's still compelled to fight. His knives won't reach them, but his rifle can. 

He blows a hole through the Titan's eye socket, sending a spray of black away from her head. She falls, still sparking. The Warlock doesn't hesitate like the Titan, but his death is not as quick. He chokes around mouthfuls of blood from a shot that collapses his lung and floods his throat, and Wolf's system is overclocked with terror at watching him die.

Blood spills across his hands as he slams himself into the Warlock whose name he cannot remember, fingers closing with machine strength around his throat. The Warlock collapses and Wolf follows him down and plunges his knife into an unarmored chest. He ratchets it downward through fabric and skin and tissue, gutting him. The Warlock grips Wolf's wrists but he's bleeding to death and his hands fall slack after a few desperate wheezing breaths. 

Wolf-16 wakes up screaming and his Ghost, ever alert, rushes to his side from her perch on the canteen beside a makeshift bed. Her voice soothes, and she bumps the metal casing of her shell against his forehead. He'll alert the Hive if he doesn't calm, but she knows what to do now. She knows he won't remember what happened, and she knows he would cry if he could, and she settles her warmth into the palms of his hands and he holds her close; a lifeline, a lighthouse in a dark and violent hurricane. Serenity keeps the cold at bay, radiating Light and love, and Wolf doesn't feel so alone in the great gray nothingness of Luna. She speaks to him, gentle, and tucks herself against his chest, his white-hot heart spinning rapidly inside its confines, and his plating rattles in tremors, battered by the violent terror of storms unknown. 


End file.
